


when the dead come knocking

by vriskawa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Flashbacks, I Don't Think It's That Bad But Please Heed Tags and Warnings, Illness, Kozume Kenma-centric, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Ships are Heavily Implied but Not the Main Focus, Unreliable Narrator, Zombie Apocalypse, no happy ending, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29372814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vriskawa/pseuds/vriskawa
Summary: “You don’t have some kind of camp?”“Nope! Kageyama and I have been moving around for weeks, but we keep getting caught up,” the boy (still no name, Kenma, come on) supplied, “these things are relentless! That one could have taken me out if you hadn’t been here.”“Who’s Kageyama?”“Me.”Kenma stiffened as a knife was pressed to his throat from behind, right where the voice came from.-The last thing Kenma wanted to be doing was play third fiddle to the two bumbling, over-curious survivors he had found himself hosting at his and Kuroo's compound. He had a hard enough time taking care of Kuroo already without playing babysitter. Now if only Kageyama would stop asking questions.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Hinata Shouyou & Kozume Kenma, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 14
Kudos: 55
Collections: Recommended KuroKen Fics





	when the dead come knocking

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you so much for checking out my little baby ^^ I've been working very hard on this fic for about two months now, so I'm a bit nervous to post such a personal work. 
> 
> This zombie au does draw from other existing media, mainly The Walking Dead (the zombies in this fic resemble and have the traits of TWD zombies/walkers, and lots of plot points are nods). There is also a small nod to a BokuAka centric zombie au I read and enjoyed. Let me know if you find the reference. 
> 
> Please heed the warnings: major character death, upsetting imagery/violence. It is an apocalypse au, after all.

Hinata shouted uselessly as he grappled with the rotting flesh between his fingers. The skin peeled apart under his pull and unraveled as congealed, black blood splattered thickly across his grimed-up face. In a last ditch, instinctual effort, he screamed.

“KAGEYAMAAAA!”

The shout would probably do nothing: who even knew if Kageyama was still within earshot after he stormed off earlier? He felt tears bite at his eyes as he realized his last words to Kageyama might be —

—

Kenma heard a panicked voice shout from nearby. It sounded like they were on the old hiking trail- a hotspot for travelers alive and otherwise.

_You can’t let them die._

Panic shot through him and down to his feet until they felt like iron blocks hot glued to his legs, but he moved them anyways, trying not to crunch leaves as he dashed through the woods.

Up ahead, the tree line cleared into a dirt pathway, with two figures locked into a struggle. One was clearly alive, and struggling against a very large undead.

Orange hair, wild eyes, not much meat on his bones. How had someone like him survived so long? Kenma had only lasted this long because of Kuroo, taking care of him. He looked younger than Kenma was, but he wasn’t even sure how old he was now- he had lost track of the days for a bit there and hadn’t figured out exactly if it was October or November right now.

The boy opened his mouth, probably to shout again. _Maybe he’s with someone else_. Kenma quickly raised his gun, trying to steady his shaky hands. It’s been a while, okay?

The silencer helped, but it still didn’t truly make gunshots _silent_. The whiz and crackle made the boy jump, even as the undead attacking him crumpled. Sharp eyes found Kenma’s.

“...” The boy (Kenma should probably get a name, if he’s really going to do this) stared into him intensely, and he shuddered, suddenly very afraid the stranger would see something Kenma wasn’t ready for him to. “...Hey, thank you!”

Kenma blinked. “You’re welcome,” he replied, his voice barely a whisper. It came out scratcher than he expected, scraping his throat and exposing his disuse of it. “Why are you out here?”

“Where else would I be?” Orange-haired boy asked with an innocent head tilt. Kenma blinked again. _Fair enough, I guess._

“You don’t have some kind of camp?”

“Nope! Kageyama and I have been moving around for weeks, but we keep getting caught up,” the boy (still no name, Kenma, come on) supplied, “these things are relentless! That one could have taken me out if you hadn’t been here.”

Kenma winced at the volume the boy’s normal talking voice contained. His inner voice — the mean one — said that the reason these two kept getting found was because _someone_ clearly didn’t know how to whisper, even in the apocalypse.

“Who’s Kageyama?”

_“Me.”_

Kenma stiffened as a knife was pressed to his throat from behind, right where the voice came from.

_How could you be so stupid, Kenma,_ Kuroo’s voice in his head chastised, but even in his head, the affection was clear in his tone, _letting someone sneak up on you like that._

_It’s just been a while,_ Kenma shot back sharply, still in his own head. It’s true that it’s been a while since Kenma had seen uninfected people, and even longer since Kuroo had.

The guy behind him, Kageyama, cleared his throat impatiently. “Who are you.”

Kenma sighed, already exhausted by this entire ordeal. It was barely even worth it at this point, to meet human people, if he had to go through this. He lowered his head in defeat, feeling the jagged edge of the knife jab into his jugular ever so slightly.

“My name is Kenma Kozume. Me and my friend Kuro set up camp around here a while ago,” he explained softly, voice quiet enough that orange haired boy had to step forward to make out his words.

“Right, sure. And you tracked us down because?” Kageyama questioned, and Kenma internally promised himself he was sticking to dead bodies only from now on. Live people were too much work.

“I heard your friend scream. He was getting attacked, so I helped,” Kenma heard his voice turn sour and biting, and so did Kageyama apparently, because the knife pushed against his neck even more.

“Hey Kageyama, he’s telling the truth! Kenma saved my life,” the boy, who Kenma _still_ didn’t know the name of, vouched for him, glaring behind him at Kageyama, who Kenma still hadn’t been able to see.

“Shut up, Hinata, you idiot. This guy could wanna eat you for all you know,” Kageyama growled, and although Kenma did _not_ appreciate the accusation, he did appreciate finally learning who this boy was. Hinata.

“Ne, don’t be mean, Kageyama! Kozume is being nice,” Hinata pouted. Kenma remained silent, not wanting to mention the dagger at his throat and agitate someone who was very clearly volatile.

_One day, your mouth is gonna get you in serious trouble, Pudding,_ Kuroo reminded him in his mind. _Shut up, Kuroo,_ Kenma snapped back. Just when had he started spending enough time with Kuroo that his brain could perfectly conjure him up? Kenma wanted to go back to before.

Before, when Kenma never had to worry about Kuroo invading his thoughts, because they never had to separate. Now, they had to. Life was different now.

Kenma thought back to the person who struggled to summon the courage to leave his apartment and attend lectures. He didn’t even know what was to come, back then.

“Cmon, Kageyama. Just put the knife away,” Hinata needled, somehow in the most annoying way possible, and Kenma accepted in that moment that he was going to die.

Surprisingly, though, Kageyama didn’t pettily slash his throat open to get back at his companion. Instead, Kenma felt himself get shoved away from the body behind him roughly. “Fine, whatever! Let’s just go.”

“Wait wait wait, Kageyama!” Hinata whined, even louder than his voice already normally was. “Kozume said he has a camp, why can’t we stay with him for a bit?! I’m tiredddd!”

“Hinata, idiot, don’t invite yourself into other people’s camps!” Kageyama growled, grabbing Hinata by his tattered collar and beginning to literally, physically drag him away.

Kenma interrupted softly, yet impulsively. “It’s okay.”

Kageyama whirled around to face him dramatically. “You expect us to simply follow you into uncharted territory, to a camp you told us you share with _strangers_ , when we don’t know you and you could kill us at any moment?!”

“Stranger.”

“What?”

“Just one stranger. It’s only me and Kuroo.”

“...”

Kenma stared into Kageyama’s eyes for a couple seconds, evaluating. Then, decided, he silently turned around and marched back into the woods.

_Come on, come on…_

The sound of marching feet started up behind him, though clearly, these other two had no clue how to walk quietly, crunching probably everything they could under them.

_**Success. Level cleared.** _

—

“KENMA!”

Kenma jumped as a man skidded into his personal space, hunching over his gameboy instinctively. He only played it for a little bit each day, compared to when he used to spend every bit of free time locked into a video game fantasy world, so this time was precious. Now, it was being interrupted.

Great.

“Whatcha doing? Man, I can’t believe you’re still able to play that thing,” Bokuto pouted, interested and bored at the same time.

“I can plug it into our generator and it’ll charge,” Kenma explained softly, glancing at the very generator he was using (and hiding behind).

“Figures Kuroo would let you use our electricity for your games,” Bokuto glared at him, and Kenma still shrunk into himself despite knowing it was a lighthearted jab.

“Come now, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said from behind Bokuto. Kenma hadn’t even noticed he was there. “Kenma-san does more than enough keeping this place running, he deserves a little reward.”

Bokuto and Akaashi were his friends, but even Kuroo annoyed him when he interrupted Kenma’s gaming sessions, so by now he was beyond ready to melt into the wall. “Did you two need something?”

Bokuto mimed getting shot in the heart. Akaashi smiled fondly at him. “Bokuto-san here just wanted to ask if Kuroo had finished the new mission groups yet.”

“Why didn’t you go bother _Kuro_ instead, then,” Kenma asked, restarting his level now that he knew no one (Kuroo, specifically, but anyone really, since any dead body in the compound could be a threat if they weren’t found before they reanimated) was actively dying.

After all, you could die from falling in the shower, and if no one found you soon enough, within a few hours you’re just some mindless undead.

Akaashi simply shrugged.

“...Yeah, but he’s probably forgotten they exist.” Kenma sighed, “I know he probably put you two together, as always.”

Bokuto fist pumped and whooped dramatically. “Awesome! Ne, Akaashi, have you eaten lunch yet?”

“You know I haven’t, Bokuto-san, I’ve been with you all day.”

“Let’s go see if the cafeteria has MEAT!”

“As you wish, Bokuto-san. Thank you, Kenma-san.” Akaashi nodded at him politely, not offended when he received no reply.

Kenma watched their footsteps recede out of his peripheral, successfully beating the level he had been stuck on for twenty minutes.

Bokuto and Akaashi were two of the other survivors living at the compound, and (begrudgingly) some of Kenma’s favorite people. They had arrived with Akaashi dragging a limp body, chased by two undead, screaming for them to open the doors. The guards hadn’t been sure if Bokuto was even _alive_ until they could pry Akaashi off, but turns out he just had seizures— and when they were on the last leg of the journey to the compound, they had started acting up badly.

Akaashi had managed to drag him three miles from their makeshift overnight camp to their compound. “We were already on our way when he started getting worse,” he had explained during his entry interview, “but I was worried when he started having an episode right in the middle of the old train tracks.”

“What if he had died?” Kenma had asked blankly. Kuroo berated him for it later, asking such a sensitive question, but Kenma had thought it necessary. A man who can’t shoot an undead they used to know is a weight around this compound’s ankle. So he asked.

Akaashi had looked him dead in the eyes and said, “I would have shot him between the eyes, right before doing the exact same for myself.”

—

Kenma approached the gates of his compound. Now that it was just him and Kuroo, he didn’t use the large gates that required many hands to open. There was a small door in the chain-link fence surrounding their perimeter, and as he led Hinata and Kageyama through it, he heard their gasps at the sheer size of the place.

“Wow, this place is huge!” Hinata exclaimed. Kenma could practically envision the stars in his eyes.

“You live here all alone?” Kageyama asked suspiciously. Kenma looked down, twiddling with his fingers. “This looks like it’s fit for hundreds of people.”

“It’s just me and Kuroo,” Kenma replied quietly, making sure to lock the door behind them. After that, he started across the dirt field to the main buildings.

“And who is this Kuroo?” Kageyama prodded further, not even hiding his accusatory tone. Kenma rolled his eyes so far back into his head it hurt a bit.

“My best friend. He’s an idiot.”

“Hey, just like you, Kageyama!” Hinata laughed. Kageyama literally growled, launching himself at his friend as the redhead dodged.

“HINATA! YOU IDIOT!”

Kenma winced at the sound, speeding up his pace to reach the main compound. Really, this entire place was a warehouse compound from before that had been converted into a living space. Since the block had multiple warehouses, there was more than enough space for everything they could possibly need.

_Space that felt even more empty without the people that used to fill it—_ Kenma wrenched open the door to stop his train of thought. He was okay, as long as he had Kuroo.

“I went out to scout for any hordes, not roommates, so I don’t have a room ready for you two,” Kenma said shortly, “do you want one room or two?”

“One!” Hinata replied cheerfully, while at the same time, Kageyama scowled, “Two.”

Kenma sighed. This was going to be _awful._

_Do it for me, Pudding,_ Kuroo’s voice in his head wheedled. Kenma’s body sagged as he imagined Kuroo standing next to him, cackling like a hyena at his reaction. Still, he set about preparing a room for them.

Though some of these beds used to be occupied, Kenma had been given months to clear out belongings that no longer belonged to anyone. Most of the time, it was mindless work, just something to do to pass the time when he needed to do _something_ that wasn’t replaying a game on his gameboy or talking to Kuroo.

Sometimes, he sobbed into a t-shirt he knew was bought at a high school tournament from before and thought about a man he never would have known if the world hadn’t gone to shit, or stared at a half-used bottle of dye with empty eyes and contemplated if drinking it would poison him enough, or passed through a renovated room and remembered the man who had done the job, or patched up a cut and tried to replicate the steady hands that used to do it for him.

Most of the time, it was mindless work.

Just like now, as he robotically fished out blankets and pillows and some shampoo, a luxury once rare that he now had an overabundance of.

Hinata jumped around the new space like a bouncy ball or an overeager dog. Kageyama investigated every corner and glared into the hallways, staring at random sets of stairs and bedposts.

_I wonder how they lasted this long together, being total opposites like that,_ Kenma thought to himself, but had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

His imaginary Kuroo — no clue why Kenma had his imaginary Kuroo still in his mind when Kuroo was in the next building over, but whatever — retorted, _What, just like you and I are, Pudding?_

Him and Kuroo weren’t truly opposites, though. People thought they were, but just because Kuroo was disarmingly charismatic and Kenma preferred not to talk most of the time, especially when Kuroo wasn’t around. Really, they were more alike than people realized.

“Let me know when you want to shower and I’ll turn on the generator,” he muttered as he left, avoiding the burning eye contact Kageyama was trying to initiate.

“Thanks, Kozume,” Hinata shouted.

“Who says we’ll want to shower, huh?!” Kageyama challenged, and Kenma ignored him.

—

Kenma was picking vegetables in their garden when the young girl ran up to him and suddenly stopped in her tracks, seemingly nervous. He elected to ignore her if he could.

“Uhm, Kozume-san?”

He didn’t know her name. She was new, really new, and he hadn’t done her entry interview (he rarely _didn’t_ do them, because Kuroo said he “trusted Kenma’s judgment” and it was less physically demanding than work like this, out in the hot sun, but sometimes Kuroo does it because he doesn’t want to “disturb your precious sleep, Kyanma!”) so he really had no clue who she was.

Still. “Kenma.”

“Uhm. What?”

“Call me Kenma,” he clarified, leaning his entire body back until it collapsed on the grassy field surrounding their garden. The girl made a squeak of surprise.

“Okay, uhm, Kenma-san—“

“Kenma.”

“—K-K-Kenma, well, Kuroo-san said he needs you in his office, like, urgently? He said it was an issue with the generator—“

Kenma groaned loudly, cutting her off mid-sentence. It was kind of rude, but he didn’t really care. No ruder than Kuroo, really, for sending this poor new recruit on a fool’s errand to mess with him: “a problem with the generator” was Kuroo’s code for a threat of taking away his game-time, not that he ever actually followed through. He was probably just bored and Bokuto was probably just too busy with Akaashi to entertain the idiot.

Regardless, Kenma hauled his body back up and nodded at the girl. “Thanks. Bye.”

She spluttered out a “Yeah, sure!” and dashed off as Kenma slunk away from the hot gardens and into the just-as-hot compound. Honestly, it was probably even hotter in here, because the metal walls turned the place into a glorified oven.

It had taken lots of work to establish “rooms” in a warehouse that was originally just four walls and empty space, but Kuroo had gotten it done and now had an “office” near the back. Kenma opened the door without knocking.

Kuroo was occupied, not for the first time, with some girl on his lap. She started so bad at the bang of the door that she fell on her ass onto the floor. Kuroo wasn’t so startled, simply swiveling his chair and greeting Kenma enthusiastically.

“Pudding! I didn’t think you would come so quickly— what, scared I’m _actually_ gonna take away your precious games?!” Kuroo’s slanted grin makes him come off slightly menacing to newcomers, but Kenma is no newcomer to Tetsurou Kuroo.

He tactfully ignored the girl scrambling to fix her top and get out of there. To him, she might as well be invisible. Kuroo never cared enough about his hookups to introduce them to his best friend. “As if you could,” Kenma snorted, the corner of his mouth barely lifting against his will. “This place will burn down first. What do you want?”

—

Kenma sat, curled up at the table with his gameboy in hand, when Kageyama and Hinata wandered into the kitchen the next morning.

“Hey, Kozume-san? How does that thing still have charge on it?” Hinata asked with wonder in his eyes. Kageyama glared at him silently.

Kenma, honestly, wasn’t even in the mood to entertain them. Mornings were awful. Nothing good ever happened when he woke up.

“Kenma.”

“W-What? What’s—“

“Call me Kenma.”

The two of them were both staring, but Kenma was used to surprising people with his preferences. The eyes were uncomfortable, but it almost always happened the first time Kenma told people to call him his given name.

Still, Kageyama and Hinata both staring at him expectantly, not moving, was unnerving, so he muttered, “Generator.”

“Wha— oh, your game—?”

Kageyama scowled and Hinata nodded, easily accepting the explanation. Generators were all that most survivors had left to heat water, generate electricity, and more; so if Kenma decided to, he could use his to charge his game boy.

_No doubt that scowly little kid is judging you, Kyanma!_ Kuroo’s voice chimed in mentally. Kenma almost told him off before realizing that his guests would think he was crazy. He’s not crazy. Still, back before it was just them at the compound, sometimes newcomers would judge him for using such a precious resource on gaming. Kuroo had liked to give them grunt work for a week or two in order to shut them up.

Last night, he had gone to Kuroo’s room. He was looking a little better, but Kuroo liked to refuse to admit he was sick at all, so.

_“I found some people for you, Kuroo,”_ Kenma had said softly, and rolled his eyes when Kuroo groaned dramatically, _“don’t be like that.”_

They spent a bit more time just sitting together, after Kuroo calmed down. Finally, when Kenma thought it was safe to voice his question, he asked, _“Do you want to meet them?”_

Kuroo did _not_ want to meet them.

Ever since his sickness had gotten worse, it was like Kuroo was a whole different person. Kenma didn’t even know if he would ever _get better_ and Kuroo just wanted to be up and all over the place again, which he _couldn’t be_. Some days, he wasn’t even lucid.

Those days were the worst days. It was like Kuroo wasn’t even there anymore.

“Don’t you have to conserve energy for like. Stuff?” Kageyama asked, mouth twisted up in a pout. Kenma jolted back into the present. Hinata had checked out of the conversation as well and was sniffing around the kitchen— for something to eat, probably.

Kenma could imagine Kuroo’s smug face at having knowingly predicted what Kageyama was going to do. “This is stuff.” He shot back.

“More important stuff!” Kageyama shouted, losing a bit of composure. Seemed like he was easily set off, even when it wasn’t Hinata poking the bear.

“What else is there to do?” Kenma asked, still noisily bashing the buttons on his console. He was no longer looking at his guests, but they were probably looking around.

The lights were on in the kitchen and hallway, but only there. Their gas stove was never used, and they didn’t have a refrigerator, just a single industrial-sized freezer in the basement. No doubt they came to the realization very quickly that with just two people here, they weren’t hurting to conserve resources.

Kenma had invited two _strangers_ here. They weren’t starving.

“Ooh!” There was a loud _CLUNK_ and then a pained groan.

Hinata popped up, a bashful smile on his face as he rubbed at a spot on his head. There was a can of clementines proudly displayed with the other hand.

“Look what I found!”

“Idiot, don’t hurt yourself!”

“Idiot-idiot, don’t call me an idiot!”

“HEY—“

Kenma cleared his throat, and they both turned to face him immediately with very different expressions. He didn’t like being so closely stared at. “You can have some of the canned fruit for breakfast. I already ate.”

He felt his entire body decompress as those two immediately zeroed in on the clementines, away from him, arguing over who got them.

_Those two will argue about anything, huh._ At least Kenma had figured out a good distraction for them, so he could run away from socialization at any point. That made him feel better.

Quietly, he slunk away from their conversation, managing to flatten himself against the hallway wall when he heard Kageyama shout, “HEY! WHERE DID HE GO?!”

Kenma scurried away, trying to keep Kageyama from following him. He wasn’t necessarily scared of an overgrown teenager with anger issues, but he wasn’t _comfortable_ , not when that overgrown teenager thought you were some evil devil’s trap and carried a gun at all times. It wasn’t a good recipe.

At least Hinata seemed to like him, even if it was superficial. Sure, the boy would probably choose his companion over Kenma any day, but wasn't Kenma the same? Kenma would raze the entire earth for Kuroo. Everyone had _that person_ , the one that kept them going when everything around you said _give up_. Without that person, you would have no reason to live.

—

Kenma knew that Kuroo knew, but he still refused to admit that he was avoiding him.

He was attached, okay? He was attached to his stupid best friend, the only one that’s stuck by his side since elementary school and never complained that he’s weird and socially awkward and obsessed with games. Kuroo is everything to Kenma, but lately, he realized that he’s long overdue for a reality check.

See, Kuroo _loved_ women. He’s never been great at long term, healthy relationships, yeah, the last one Kuroo attempted had ended long before the world itself had, but regardless.

Kuroo brought in random women from the compound, fucked them, kept them around for a bit, then when he realized that they were emotionally attached because _it’s Kuroo, and he’s easy to love_ — he dumped them out and found a new thing to do.

That’s why the opinion of Kuroo was so mixed in the compound. Kuroo had (almost single-handedly, with only a little help from Kenma) founded this place and saved so many lives by doing so. But he was also fond of sex and not fond of relationships and had a tendency to get defensive when someone pushed for more.

Kenma _never_ pushed for more. That was why Kenma had stuck around for two decades, and most women didn't last two weeks with Kuroo. Kenma doesn’t even call them Kuroo’s girlfriends, because Kuroo doesn’t call them that and you introduce your best friend to your girlfriend.

Anyways. Kenma was avoiding Kuroo.

Kuroo had to have noticed by this point, but Kenma didn’t care.

See, four months ago, _Yukie_ had begun visiting Kuroo in his office and in his room at night. It’s normal for Kuroo to pick up a new partner for a bit, and Kenma usually just ignored them until they went away (like flies), but Yukie didn’t go away.

Yukie was gorgeous. She had huge, sleepy eyes, soft hair that brushed her shoulders, a cute, teasing smile, perfect skin, and a slender, attractive body type. Kenma hated it.

Kuroo hadn’t gotten bored of her yet. And over time, he stopped seeing the other girls he messed around with — the ones who didn’t really care if they were just his fuckbuddy and stuck around for a fun time — until it was just Yukie, Yukie, _Yukie._

Kenma was even keeping track. It had been four months, one week, six days, and probably around three hours since Kuroo and Yukie had started messing around.

After a couple months, it even looked like they were spending time together that wasn’t necessarily sexual, and that was when the red flags _really_ started.

_“Pudding! There you are!”_

_Kenma didn’t even have the mental space to think of some snappy retort when he was still taking in the sight in front of him: Kuroo, grinning at him happily from his office floor, and Yukie, relaxed and fully clothed, across from him, a board game set up between them._

_What the fuck. When was the last time Kuroo let the lines blur between hookup and friend?_

Kuroo was a good guy, honest. He wasn’t even much of a fuckboy in college, more just emotionally constipated and too focused on his studies to be a good boyfriend, from what Kenma saw. Then he graduated, and _studies_ became _work_. Still emotionally constipated, too.

But now that the world was kind of over, Kuroo decided one of his shiny new coping mechanisms was going through his fuckboy phase in his late twenties. Kenma didn’t really care, because Kuroo always treated him the exact. Fucking. Same. But he also didn’t like acknowledging it.

He also didn’t enjoy acknowledging the hookups themselves, and yeah, that was a bit demeaning, but can you blame him? He doesn’t really want to look someone in the eyes and have them realize exactly why he hates them so much.

Kuroo knew that, and yet. He still keeps trying to introduce him to Yukie.

And it’s not _fair._ It was always them against the world, Kuroo and Kenma, Kenma and Kuroo, them _only._ Yukie doesn’t fit. They’re a two piece set, and Yukie would have to replace someone. Replace _Kenma._

Kenma knew he wasn’t a romantic option to Kuroo, had known since he started wondering about things like this in high school. But he had still comforted himself, taken solace in the knowledge that Kuroo might never want Kenma the way Kenma wanted him to, but Kuroo would always choose Kenma anyways.

They were each other’s person. That doesn’t have to be romantic. That was enough. For Kenma, at least.

But apparently, Kuroo was finally ready to settle down, and all the signs are there. Kenma’s finally found a boss he can’t beat and instead of some undead body it’s a 5’3 ex-nutritionist who paints her nails.

_“Kuroo, what is this?”_

_“What, I can't just invite my best friend to lunch with a fellow resident?” Kuroo simpered teasingly, “I don’t know why you’re so suspicious of me all the time. I’m hurt.”_

_“Right.” Kuroo gestured for Kenma to sit down where a plate of food was already waiting for him. Goosebumps erupted across his arms even though he wasn’t cold in the slightest. “Actually, I already ate.”_

_Kenma didn’t stop speed walking away from the cafeteria until Kuroo stopped shouting indignantly at him to slow down._

Kuroo was definitely trying to introduce him and Yukie. Which is stupid, because he fucking knew who she was at that point, but he was going to introduce her as his _girlfriend,_ Kenma just knew he would.

And that made it real. Who knew if Kuroo would break up with Yukie or if they would get married with rings and hunt down a priest that wasn’t rotting into the ground and have little killing-machine babies and forget all about some childhood friend who got way too codependent?

At least like this, Kenma could prolong it just a little bit more.

And prolong it he did, because Kuroo had sent some poor newbie after him to tell him to come to his office, and Kenma would bet toilet paper rations that Yukie was sitting there with him, waiting for Kenma to wander in so they could once again try to spring relationship announcements onto him.

So Kenma had nodded at the little bellboy, some middle school aged thing with crazy curly hair and freckles, and then headed straight to his room.

His room, where _Kuroo was fucking waiting for him._

“AHA!” Kuroo jumped up, off of where he was lounging on Kenma’s bed, and pointed at Kenma accusingly. “I knew it! You _are_ avoiding me!”

Kenma looked down. _Fuck._ Kuroo knew that was one of his tells. Not good. “I am not.”

“Yes, you are! I keep asking you to come see me and bothering you at meals and you just run away!! Even Bokuto has noticed!!”

“There’s nothing for Bokuto to notice, he’s just stupid.”

“Oh really?” Kuroo tapped his foot disapprovingly, knowing Kenma would see it with his lowered gaze. Kenma’s face flushed in indignation, but he refused to rise to the bait.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then tell me why you haven’t talked to me like, at all this week.”

Kenma felt his annoyance spike. “Talk to Yukie if you’re so lonely.”

“...What?”

Kuroo sounded so genuinely bewildered Kenma found himself meeting his best friend’s gaze again.

“Are you seriously upset about Yukie? ...Did she... do something to you?”

_No, I’m just a jealous idiot._

“Kenma?”

Kuroo was looking at him with genuine concern now. Kenma felt kind of bad: Kuroo liked Yukie, and now he thought she had done something mean that she didn’t do, because for all Kenma hated Yukie, she had been nothing but casually polite to Kenma. She didn’t deserve this.

Still, he said nothing to correct the man in front of him.

“Okay, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” Kuroo leaned down into Kenma’s space, and if he had been flushed angrily before, he was a flustered red now. Kuroo was staring intensely at him, with some type of look in his eyes Kenma couldn’t quite place before it was gone. “I’ll take care of it.”

Kenma never saw Yukie again. Two weeks later, he managed to muster up the courage to ask Akaashi what happened to her. Akaashi simply looked at him strangely, shook his head, and changed the subject.

—

Kenma had told Hinata he would give them a tour of the place after dinner, so he should have expected both of them to eat so quickly they choked and drag Kenma away from his chicken nuggets. He heaved a sigh and led them out of the kitchen, lamenting.

Really, this place wasn’t too hard to navigate, it was basically a grid system of built-on walls (added into the warehouse after they had set up shop here to make it feel more “homey”, according to Kuroo), but he still didn’t want Hinata or especially Kageyama going anywhere they weren’t welcome.

“This place really is huge,” Hinata commented offhandedly, observing the sheer number of bedroom-like spaces they were walking past.

“There used to be a lot more people here, so Kuroo wanted them to have privacy. No one wants to live in a locker room.” Kenma sighed, wrinkling his nose at the very idea. He remembered the locker rooms back in high school, when Kuroo still dragged him into participating in clubs. Gross.

“What happened to the other people? This place is deserted!” Kageyama used his height, taller than both Kenma and Hinata by a fair margin, to loom ominously over Kenma’s head. Kenma ducked away, making the intimidation factor basically useless.

Kenma shrugged, looking away awkwardly. He just wanted to escape this topic. “The same thing that happens to everyone else.”

They passed a door with a piece of paper labeled KEEP OUT in distinctive handwriting stuck on it, dead center. “What’s that?” Kageyama asked, stopping and pointing.

Kenma sighed, yanking down the paper. He could not _believe_ no one had ever taken that down before, himself included. “My old office. Someone barged in and got me sick there. With what Kuroo has. It’s fine now.”

“Not the undead virus, right?” Kageyama asked suspiciously.

“Do I look undead to you?” Kenma replied crossly, speeding up his pace as he started walking again. They silently trudged through a couple of hallways before they escaped the bedrooms and Kenma’s office.

Unfortunately, Kenma had inadvertently led their little expedition straight into the quarantine hallway. It was the one place in the compound Kenma absolutely _refused_ to go into unless absolutely _necessary_ , so although there were no bodies -- undead or otherwise -- waiting for them, it was still eerie-- abandoned in disrepair.

“What… What happened here?” Hinata asked, cautiously taking in his surroundings. Kenma felt rooted to the spot.

_It’s fine. It’s okay. The worst if it is over. Kuroo is getting better._

“Back when there were lots of people living here, someone brought… _something_ back, after a scouting mission.” Kenma started. He felt dark blue eyes staring into him again, countless in the amount of times they analyzed him.

“It was just a bad strain of the flu, probably. If things were… normal, it wouldn’t have been a big issue. But we didn’t have any medicine to distribute, and only one doctor to take care of everyone else. Thanks to some… less-than-great decisions, it spread like wildfire.”

_“Your_ less-than-great decisions?” Kageyama accused dryly, and Kenma instinctively bristled at the implication.

_“No.”_ Kenma bit his lip, knowing that he hadn’t meant to snap at Kageyama, and refocused himself. “Lets just say that one stupid person can kil a hundred smart ones.”

It was true that if one _stupid, stupid person_ had just listened to him -- and to everyone else -- it was likely that they could have gotten away with one or two people catching the flu and that would have been the end of it. But you can't change the past: only bury the dead.

Kenma pushed off his feet, previously anchored to the ground as he remembered his own time in this halfway what felt like forever ago, and started leading his two companions towards the other side of the building.

Kageyama was breathing down his neck as they walked. He was stationed so close, directly behind Kenma, so harsh with his puffing Kenma could tell what he was looking at by what angle hot air was hitting the back of his neck. Hinata, on the other hand, walked silently next to him, clearly aware of the darkness this hallway contained but simply choosing not to bring it up.

Every one of them seemed glad to escape the heavy atmosphere and emerge into a new area.

“Woaaahhh,” Hinata sighed, drawn out, as Kenma brought them into a larger room with weights and a haphazardly drawn chalk track path in it. “You guys have a workout room?!”

“Do you even use this?” Kageyama asked in a judgmental tone, but he was already eagerly examining the weights, which lay abandoned on the floor. Kenma silently shook his head, unashamed, and pushed the other two away, glad that the shitty equipment and hastily-set up running path had sufficiently distracted them.

“I’m sorry about him, really,” Hinata spoke up as their trio kept traveling. “Kageyama is nice, really! He’s just afraid you’re going to like... kill us and cut up our bodies or something, haha. You wouldn’t do that, right? I think you’re nice. I mean, you wouldn’t go out of your way to save my life if you wanted me to die, right?”

Kenma himself kind of wanted to die at this moment.

“...Right.”

Kageyama sulked behind them as Hinata launched into a ramble about Kageyama’s paranoia. Kenma tuned it out. He slowed to a stop eventually down a hallway with another KEEP OUT sign - same handwriting - tacked in front of it.

“Don’t go down here. It’s mostly empty, anyways. Just… dangerous. Never finished building the walls and all that.”

“Yessir!” Hinata saluted enthusiastically, and Kenma cracked a small smile at his ridiculousness. Honestly, the world did one thing right keeping Hinata Shoyo alive.

—

Kenma always hated doing paperwork, but at least he was inside instead of doing manual labor in the fields or patrolling the perimeter. More and more people came in every day, and trying to keep track of who was where and who did what was slowly becoming a full time job.

Still, Kenma felt his soul wither and die when he saw who was pushing his door open sheepishly, holding a small stack of paperwork.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, glaring holes at the intruder.

“Sorry sorry sorry!” Lev panicked rightfully, feeling the deadly vibes coming off of Kenma, “I just got so bored waiting for Yaku to show up, and I feel fine, so I just thought--”

“You had _one_ job…” Kenma groaned, banging his head onto his desk. Papers fluttered up at the resulting air displacement and Lev yelped in concern.

“I feel fine!” He shouted again.

“That’s not how this works.” Kenma slouched out of his chair and grabbed the paperwork stack, since it was already in his office, and death-stared at the taller man. “You are in _quarantine._ It doesn’t matter that you feel fine. You could be asymptomatic and contaminating the entire compound.”

Lev visibly died a little on the inside. “But I’m so _bored!_ ”

Well, Kenma never believed Lev was _smart_ , but this was a new level of idiocy. Geez, the moron just didn’t know how to care about anyone besides himself, huh?

“I. Don’t. Care.”

“KENMA-”

A new voice joined in on the commotion as the door was slammed open once more. Kenma audibly groaned.

“LEV!”

“Ahh! Uhm, hey Yaku. You come here often?” Lev awkwardly tried to lean against the wall suavely. Kenma shook his head in disappointment as Yaku approached his charge with demon eyes.

“I left you alone for two minutes -- TWO MINUTES! -- so I can go to the bathroom, and you sneak out of your room and somehow find the one person you shouldn’t be around right now! How do you think things would go around here if Kenma died?!” Yaku grabbed Lev’s shirt and dragged him down to the shorter’s eye level as he chewed him out.

“Technically, Kuroo is more important than me,” Kenma muttered unhelpfully, and was ignored.

“But I’m bored! All I do is sit in my room all day and do nothing! I don’t even have my phone on me because it’s dead and Kenma won’t let me use the generator to charge it anymore!”

“Lev, you are in _quarantine_. Your sister got really sick, and we still don’t know what exactly she brought back with her, and we have no way to test it. Now you wouldn’t be in this situation if you had just stayed away during _her_ quarantine, but you couldn’t do that, so you brought this upon yourself.”

Kenma sighed loudly, drawing both of his guests’ (intruders) attention to him accidentally.

“Kenma, I’m so sorry about him,” Yaku apologized sheepishly, whacking Lev down into a bow.

Kenma looked away from the embarrassing display. “It’s not your fault that Lev’s so stupid.”

Lev whined at the insult, but Yaku probably smacked him again, judging by the smack noise and lack of complaint from the giant. Kenma was not feeling this today, he just wanted to go back to his work. But now, he was going to have to go through quarantine as well, probably get invasive tests done to make sure whatever Lev had gotten wasn’t also going to kill him now. What a pain.

Yaku smiled apologetically when he finally managed to catch Kenma’s eye again. “Just stay here, okay? I’ll ask Kuroo what he wants to do about this.”

Kenma nodded dully and let Lev be dragged violently away. The door slammed shut and outside, Kenma could hear Yaku’s muffled shouts telling everyone nearby not to go in Kenma’s office and to stay away from Lev.

This wasn’t even the first time Lev had acted up. His older sister, Alisa, was a pre-med student with Yaku at the same university before the world fell and was obviously an asset on scouting and scavenging missions. One day, she had come back and asked to be put in a voluntary self-quarantine due to exposure to a sick person on the outside.

_“I feel fine,”_ she had said, _“but they coughed right in my face.”_

Kuroo trusted Alisa, and set up the best quarantine he could. Yaku was the next best “doctor” they had, only a year behind Alisa in classes and experience, so he took care of her and quarantined whenever he wasn’t doing that.

Alisa was right to do so, by the way-- she started coughing a few days later, and after a week, she started registering a fever. From the way Kuroo talked about it, she wasn’t doing too hot, but Kenma was never really allowed around her. Kuroo told him (and everyone else) to stay away.

Lev was her younger brother, an athlete and model in training that had been dragged along by Alisa and Yaku to the compound. He was really strong and tall, so he mainly did manual labor and obviously wasn’t useful taking care of a sick patient, but he snuck in to see Alisa anyways.

They were still waiting to see if Lev would get Alisa’s symptoms, or any symptoms, really, and until then, he was exiled to a quarantine room. They didn’t have the resources to test people for any type of illness, this wasn’t a hospital, so this was the game plan.

But if Lev kept _sneaking out_ , they wouldn’t be able to contain anything.

Kenma stared down at the papers Lev had brought him: they were symptoms reports from Yaku on how Lev and Alisa were doing.

ALISA HAIBA

_symptoms: fever, 99.8 degrees (down .4 degrees from last temperature check); cough (light)_

_status: seems to be recovering. cough is barely present and throat and voice are fully recovered, not described as sore or scratchy. full recovery expected._

LEV HAIBA

_symptoms: none reported_

_status: seems to not have any symptoms, may either be asymptomatic or not have illness_

NOTES

_Although we don’t know for sure, this is most likely a common illness or flu. We confirmed that Lev and Alisa both had updated flu shots before world’s fall, but since it’s been so long since then, they aren’t technically “up to date”. This could also be a new strain, or one that wasn’t in the most recent vaccine. Even then, it could not be flu at all. It could be any number of viral infections or bacterial illnesses…_

The report continued on, but already Kenma’s head hurt at the information overload. He didn’t know anything about medicine, and frankly, neither did Kuroo, so they had nothing to add here. The reports were Kuroo’s idea. Probably just because he liked having a paper trail: it made it easy to keep track of things and explain their decisions to everyone else at the compound.

Kuroo chose that moment to burst into his office, clearly having ran here from when Yaku let him know what happened.

“Kenma! Are you okay?!” He rushed over to Kenma’s side and pressed a hand against Kenma’s forehead, leaning in close to stare at his eyes. They were unfocused, but merely out of boredom.

“I’m fine, Kuroo,” he sighed, “But now we’re _both_ going to have to quarantine, you realize that, right?”

Kuroo pulled his hand back like it had been burned. “Right, sorry…”

Kenma muttered, “It’s fine. Yaku’s gonna be mad, though.” He pointedly did not ask Kuroo to go back to touching him.

Kuroo laughed. It was his awful, soul-deep hyena laugh, a hacking sound that honestly sounded like a rooster choking to death. Kenma smiled fondly, but only because he knew Kuroo couldn’t see it and make fun of him for it when he was laughing that hard.

—

Things had been going as well as they could with Kageyama and Hinata.

Kuroo still didn’t seem ready, and Kenma wasn't going to push him. After all, he was really sick, and so bullheaded he probably didn’t want anyone besides Kenma seeing him in a moment of weakness like that. Some days, it was like he didn’t even want Kenma to be seeing him.

But Kageyama was ready to push. Kageyama was desperate to meet the other person living with them, which was honestly so annoying-- couldn’t he respect Kuroo’s wishes and _wait?_ He was accusing Kenma of hiding Kuroo away like some captive in a basement and refused to back down, even when Hinata snapped at him.

Which Hinata wasn’t afraid to do. He was doing it right now.

Kenma shoved another mouthful of reheated, canned green beans into his mouth so he had an excuse to stay out of the argument. If Kuroo was able to be here, he would be physically pulling Kageyama and Hinata apart by their collars because they were nose-to-nose, fighting.

Kageyama growled, “How can you trust him so easily?!”

“Look, Kenma has given us no reason not to! You’re acting like he’s a murderer!”

“There you go again, using his given name all- all _willy-nilly!”_

“Kenma _asked us_ to use his given name, for your information! It would be rude not to!”

“Don’t you think it's weird that he's putting us up like this for no goddamn reason and having you use his given name and refuse to let us meet the one other person in this huge, empty compound? He’s hiding something!”

“Kuroo is sick,” Kenma muttered crossly. Hinata jumped on his words.

“Yeah, Kuroo is _sick_ , Kageyama, of course he’s not gonna want visitors,” Hinata simpered smugly.

“When _my grandpa_ got sick, he wanted visitors.”

“Well is this Kuroo guy your grandpa, Kageyama?!”

“Wha-” Kageyama blushed fiercely, “Of course not!”

“Well there you have it, then!” Hinata sat back down, looking up triumphantly, an air of finality to his words. Kageyama reluctantly followed him back down with a huff, shoveling green beans into his mouth like it was his last meal. They both always ate like that, like they hadn’t seen food in six days.

This was normal. Kageyama and Hinata fought constantly, about _everything_ , but their newest favorite topic was Kenma. At first, he had only been able to catch them directly after fights, with heated glares and a tense air surrounding them, then he started catching muffled arguing from their rooms late at night. Kema hadn’t known if they were visiting each other after dark or just straight-up sleeping in the same bed.

But quickly, they had given up on being private about it. They would start arguing about who had the bigger meal portion or who had annoyed the other, then all of a sudden the topic would change to him while he was sitting _right there_. It was honestly kind of fascinating, but mainly it just ticked Kenma off.

“Can you pass the green beans?” Hinata asked suddenly, staring at Kenma eagerly with stars in his eyes. Kenma nodded quietly and handed over the half-unfinished can, avoiding the glare being leveled at him from across the table.

They ate in the small table set up near the kitchens. There was a cafeteria, a huge room filled just with tables meant for eating and conversation, but before Hinata and Kageyama had even shown up, Kenma had locked the doors for it. He had no use for it anymore and he didn’t like questions as to why.

“Hey, Kageyama, do you want more green beans, or can I finish them?” Hinata asked, accidentally spitting a half-chewed piece directly at his friend.

Kageyama’s face contorted with disgust as he wiped away the gross chunk of green. Without answering, he stood up, his chair loudly scraping against the floor, and stalked away.

“Your loss!” Hinata shouted at his retreating form.

—

Quarantine was _awful._

The two of them were set up together in a room with two beds and a curtain that could be drawn between them. Yaku was the only one to visit them, and he only chatted for a couple minutes as he observed their symptoms and took their temperatures before leaving.

At least he had his gameboy with him, so when Kuroo got too annoying, he could just play on that, but Yaku only recharged it for him once a day since the generator wasn’t in the room with them and Kenma obviously couldn’t leave.

Kuroo was also getting pretty touchy.

“Kenma…” he called pathetically from across the room, pitifully draping himself all across his cot to appear on the brink of death, “Can we cuddle?”

“Cuddle with the guns on the table or something,” Kenma grit out, rolling over in his own cot to face the wall. “You’re sick.”

“So are you,” Kuroo argued back, wheedling away at Kenma’s resolve. Kenma replied with a weak cough, and Kuroo went, “Ha! See?”

The truth is, Kuroo and Kenma had grown up together, and when you’re kids, it’s normal to sleep together when you have sleepovers. The bed is so big and it’s just too much work to pull out an extra mattress. Not so normal in high school, so they stopped, except when they lost an important game or Kenma was really struggling with his insomnia, but they didn’t really talk about it in the morning.

In college it finally petered out for real, but some nights when Kenma laid in his bed in a Tokyo apartment, knowing Kuroo was right next door, he wished he could be in that same bed again, curled up around someone else’s body and sleeping peacefully.

He never brought that up, either. Then they graduated college a year apart and the next year the virus hit and everything changed. Bed-sharing became a necessity again, like when they were kids.

Still. “You have a fever, though. I don’t.”

“So? You got the sickness anyways, Kenma. Don’t you wanna cuddle me?”

Kenma could _hear_ the puppy dog eyes Kuroo must have been giving him. If Bokuto were here, he would have laughed at their pathetic situation. Kuroo must be sicker than he seemed, and slowly becoming delusional.

Wasn’t it weird to ask your 25-year-old friend to cuddle, even if you guys were sick? Why was Kuroo so touch starved? Kenma knew he was fucking at least five girls in the compound.

“Please… Kenma?” Kuroo dragged out one last plea.

Kenma sighed loudly and dramatically in defeat, sitting up in his bed. Across the room, Kuroo perked up in victory, watching Kenma silently open up his piled-on blankets. “C’mere,” he muttered with an embarrassed blush.

Kuroo scrambled for the opening before Kenma could change his mind, and before he knew it, he was wrapped up in Kuroo’s larger body. He knew that Kuroo had been more muscular before the world’s fall (college sports teams will do that to a person) but now, he had a skinnier, sinewy frame to him. Not a bag of bones, he still held on to his original body type, but Kenma could feel Kuroo’s collarbone poke into his temple as the taller curled around him.

A few hours later, it was ruined by Yaku’s laughter shaking them awake. Kenma hadn’t even noticed he was falling asleep.

—

Kenma wasn’t planning on going outside today, but Hinata and Kageyama were shouting at each other so loudly out there he was starting to get worried that they would attract undead to the fence.

It was still warm outside around midday, but later in the evening Kenma knew the temperatures would drop and start to bite, so if those two were gonna do this, at least they did it before sundown.

They were having a row like a freshly married couple on their front lawn, putting on a real show for the neighbors.

Still, he watched quietly from outside the door, unsure if he should interfere when, once again, they were fighting about _him._

“I just don’t understand why you still insist you can’t trust him!” Hinata shouted, gesturing at the compound. Kenma wasn’t sure if he’d even been noticed yet.

Kageyama bristled, matching Hinata’s volume. “What? Trust the creepy guy who brought us back to a huge, empty settlement with one other guy we’re not even allowed to meet?! How does that not freak you out?!”

Well, put like that, it was a fair argument, even to Kenma’s ears, and he was the creepy guy in question. _Congrats, Kyanma! You’re officially a creep!_ The imaginary Kuroo in his head hyena-laughed. Kenma shook his head to banish the annoying noise.

“He’s not creepy, you just don’t understand him! And Kuroo is sick, obviously he’s not gonna wanna meet anyone who he could infect! He’s just decent!” Hinata gestured so aggressively his arms were basically windmilling, but his eyes were daggers all the same. Hinata was shorter than Kenma, who already stood at a very unimpressive height, but right now, the redhead was _intimidating_. Yeah, not getting involved in that right now.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side! Can’t you _just TRUST ME_?” Kageyama screamed, betrayal running deep in his voice.

“Trust you?! TRUST YOU!” Hinata scoffed aggressively, “Yeah, I’ll sure trust the guy who left me for dead! Abandoned me in the _middle of nowhere_ , didn’t care when I got attacked, left me to DIE when an undead could come at any moment! And who saved me?! KENMA! KENMA DID, KAGEYAMA!”

Kageyama opened his mouth to shout back, but Hinata was fired up and steamrolled over him. “You know what? Oikawa was right about you all along. You refuse to help anybody, to _trust_ anybody, trust ME, because you’re some useless king—“

Kageyama punched him. Hinata was screaming so passionately the hit took him by surprise and sent him to the ground, where he stayed, still in shock.

“ _Fuck. You._ I’m leaving, with or without you. See if I care, you can stay with Kenma since you love the dude so _fucking_ much.”

Kageyama stormed away, back towards the building, and Kenma only realized that he was just standing and watching like an idiot when they made eye contact. Kageyama glared with real resentment.

“I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself,” he growled as he stomped past.

Hinata shouts, “Kenma!”

Worriedly, Kenma glances over and sees Hinata barreling towards him, tears in his eyes but his face hard with resolve. They clash bodies and Hinata jumps at him with a hug. Kenma lets him cry into his shoulder.

—

Now that Kenma had nothing to do but think about things, stuck alone in a room with Kuroo and occasionally one very short nuisance to his sanity, he was beginning to realize that he and his best friend had a habit of just ignoring things they didn’t want to bring up and deal with. They did that quite often.

What they didn’t do quite often was _continue the thing._

Judging by Kuroo throwing himself onto the floor in his rush to stop cuddling with Kenma when they were discovered by Yaku last week, Kenma thought that his brief fantasy-realization had come to a permanent end, but the next night, with Yaku gone, Kuroo had sheepishly asked again. And Kenma had relented. _Again._

Yaku hadn’t had the lack of self preservation to keep mentioning it, so he just ignored it when he brought updates about the compound, the outbreak (because that’s what it was at this point), and their health.

Kuroo had been doing worse than Kenma when they both started showing symptoms, but recently, it was like their statuses had flipped. Kenma had a high fever and he slept most of the day away, while Kuroo only really had a sore throat. Lucky bastard.

Today, Kenma was feeling lucid enough to want to hear Yaku’s reports. Kuroo allowed it, even though they both knew he probably wasn’t in any condition to provide useful insight.

“Unfortunately, not a lot of good news,” Yaku sighed, opening up his beat-up notepad, “I already had to section off this entire hallway for quarantine rooms, but we might overflow soon. Keep getting new patients like this and soon we’ll just be counting the people who _aren’t_ sick.”

Kuroo sighed, stress already setting into his brow.

“Alisa is officially recovered in my book, and she’ll be helping me do rounds by the end of the week, but Lev is still not waking up. She might not leave her brother’s side until he does.”

Lev, the idiot who started this entire mess, was doing the worst so far. He had a very high fever and had passed out a day ago with yet to wake up. Kenma wasn’t going to say it in front of Yaku but... _serves him right._

“Speaking of how people are doing, Kuroo, you’ve been recovering quite nicely. Hopefully things will stay smooth with you as long as you drink your fluids — not those fluids, stop making that face you pervert — and keep resting. Kenma, you on the other hand are not doing too hot. You shouldn’t be moving at all until your fever breaks, you hear?”

Yaku brought out a temperature checker for Kenma as he lectured, tutting worriedly when he saw the result. “Hopefully at the least, your fever will break soon.”

“We have a couple other people who are recovering well, like you, Kuroo. Since the majority of other sick people aren’t recovering yet, just getting worse, we only have that small sample size to study.” Yaku showed Kuroo a list.

“And how are things for the compound outside of the outbreak? How’s Akaashi doing?” Kuroo asked.

Yaku gave a thumbs up. “Surprisingly well! He’s been managing things decently. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a manager before the world ended.”

Kuroo snorted. “I wonder.”

“Say, what did you do before the world ended, Kuroo? Kenma?”

“I was a stock broker. Kenma was a YouTuber, but I mean he was an _actual_ YouTuber. Millions of subscribers and everything,” Kuroo sounded suspiciously like he was bragging, even though he wasn’t talking about himself.

Kenma laughed weakly. “Lot of good that did me.”

Being a YouTuber is the type of job that leaves you least prepared for the world to end. Kuroo had dragged him out of dying several times before he could develop actual survival skills. At least Kuroo had his leftover athleticism from college and Yaku his medical knowledge.

All Kenma had to show for his pre-apocalypse life is 1. an unhealthy attachment to video games, and 2. an unhealthy attachment to Kuroo.

“Hey, I think it’s cool. It’s like knowing a celebrity,” Yaku patted Kenma’s head teasingly, and him and Kuroo both laughed when Kenma swatted his hand away half-heartedly, eyes glassy.

“Back on topic, just make sure Akaashi is okay. And try not to let him get infected, if you can. We don’t have many other backups for leaders to keep this place running without him.”

That was true. If unrest started stirring, a movement could begin to overthrow Kuroo while he was sick, or get rid of all the sick people as “dead weight.” Either would be a disaster.

“Yeah, I will,” Yaku nodded along, taking Kuroo’s temperature now.

“Hey Yaku, what happens if—“ Kenma cut off with a harsh pant as his throat closed up on him for a second. “What happens if you get sick?”

Yaku stopped mid-movement, and the air suddenly turned stifling. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. If it does, Alisa will have to take care of everything on her own while her brother dies.”

“Hold on, _dying?!_ ” Kuroo yelped. Kenma groaned at the volume. “Sorry, Kenma.”

“Well, he could still recover, don’t get me wrong, but he really is getting worse and worse, so if it doesn’t turn around soon…”

Kenma nodded, listening to Yaku talk, but he was out of energy. Kuroo and Yaku were still discussing, and he tried to stay focused, but his mind was done for the day. Against his will, he drifted out of consciousness.

The last thing he felt was Kuroo sliding the covers over him, alone.

—

Kenma didn’t usually like to _cook_ with the food they had stocked in the compound. The most he did was heat it over a fire, usually just to defrost stuff from the freezer, which is why canned food was easier for him.

But Hinata just _couldn’t stop crying_. Every time Kenma figured he had finally worn himself out, run out of liquid in his eyes, it started again. He wasn’t even hysterical: Kenma could hold a conversation with him, but he would just start crying in the middle of it and try to soldier on. It was painful to watch. For many reasons.

So Kenma decided to actually cook. Both to have something to do besides be guilted into hugging Hinata and to hopefully make Hinata _stop crying._

Really, it was about time. There’s only so much to do here.

So they were going to have a gourmet Kenma-style dinner of frozen (then defrosted and cooked) pork, canned green beans (heated up well this time), and rice. Really, Hinata should appreciate all the lengths Kenma is going to for him.

Kageyama hadn’t come to see Hinata since, so it seemed like he really planned on leaving. Kenma was sure he was still here, but could leave at any moment. Kenma felt kind of bad, but it sure made his life easier not having an overgrown child breathing down his neck when he tried to go to the bathroom or sleep or eat canned peaches.

By the time the food was finished and everything was added, Hinata was staring off into space, glaring at the table aggressively. Kenma slid the paper plate under his gaze and it focused back in on the pork.

“Wow, is this actual pork?! Where did you find it?!”

Was it seriously that easy to cheer Hinata up? Some meat for him to scarf down?

Kenma sat in his own seat across from Hinata and silently poked at the meat. He wasn’t a big fan of protein.

_Come on, Kenma, it’s good for you!_ Kuroo’s voice rang in his head, a crystal clear memory of the many, many times Kenma had been bullied into eating healthily. Even before the world’s fall he had been skinny, and Kuroo, with his stereotypically-athletic build, never let him hear the end of it.

A sniffle. Kenma wanted to kill someone. Still, he persevered.

“I-I’m sorry, Kenma. I know this is probably the- the last thing you want to be dealing with right now,” Hinata slapped a hand over his mouth to hide his shaking expression.

_Yeah,_ Kenma thought to himself, then mentally imagined Kuroo smacking the back of his head and shook his head. “No,” he lied, scotting a bit closer to Hinata.

“Really?” Hinata didn’t even wait for a reply, just steamrolled right into the thick of it. “It’s just that Kageyama and I have been together for _forever_ , you know? This entire thing, we’ve known each other since high school! I can’t believe he’s just leaving after all that and for no good reason!”

“He might just be jealous,” Kenma said softly.

“What is there to be jealous of? I don’t even like you! I mean, I like you, Kenma, you’re really cool and you saved my life so I kinda have to like you, but I don’t like you the way I like Kageyama, you know?” It was kind of endearing to watch Hinata stumble over himself like that when Kenma wasn’t even offended by the slip of the tongue.

Time to put him out of his misery. “Yeah. He’s your person.”

“My person?”

“Yeah. The person you would do anything for.”

“Of course I would do anything for Kageyama!” _Aside from leave with him, apparently._ “He’s all I have…”

“When everything started really falling apart, we kept each other alive, you know? Even when we were with other people or in a group, I always trusted him to be on my side in the end. At least, until now. He wants me to trust him but refuses to trust me, I mean how does that work?!” Hinata slammed a frustrated fist against the table, rattling their bottled waters and paper plates as much as they could be rattled. Kenma didn’t react.

“Mhm,” Kenma nodded along, letting Hinata ramble along.

Suddenly, intense brown eyes turned on him, wide with realization. “Actually, maybe if Kageyama could just… meet Kuroo, even through a door or something, just once, for a couple minutes — then he wouldn’t be so paranoid! Problem solved!”

It sucked to break the hope in that gaze, but. “Kuroo wouldn’t want to meet Kageyama when he’s so sick. I would never force him to.”

“Right… Sorry, Kenma. I know you just want to protect Kuroo. It was stupid to ask”

“Yeah. Like you and Kageyama,” Kenma muttered. “He’s my person.”

“The person you would do anything for?”

“Something like that. Kuroo is all I have, too, you know. Don’t you understand?”

“Yeah. I do. You’re a really good friend, you know that, Kenma?”

Kenma stood up suddenly, the choking atmosphere broken by the scraping of his chair against the floor. He couldn't take anymore of this conversation, not right now, even if it was helping Hinata.

“Are you finished?” Kenma didn’t wait for an answer before swiping away the cleared plate Hinata had been eating off of and dumping it in the trash. Hinata watched him scurry out with concerned eyes, seemingly a bit unsure.

“Goodnight…?” Hinata called as Kenma ran away.

—

The next time Kenma drifts awake, it's to silence and early morning light drifting in through the thrown-open curtain to their room. Kenma takes a minute to just stare at the ceiling: most likely, he had been asleep at least twelve hours, since the last time he remembered being awake, it was mid-evening, and his fever had him oversleeping.

When he finally pulled himself up and started looking for Kuroo, he wasn’t anywhere to be found in their small quarantine room.

_That’s weird._ Kenma knew his best friend wasn’t the type to break quarantine, and they had a chamber pot in their room, so Kuroo really shouldn’t be leaving for any reason.

A bad feeling started stirring in his stomach, and Kenma tensed, expecting himself to start hurling, which he had spent all of two days ago doing. When he didn’t start retching, he slowly stood himself up.

The room only contained two beds, a curtain for privacy, a chamber pot, and a bedside table with their weapons (Who didn’t constantly arm themselves in an apocalypse? People who were dead.) and Kenma’s gameboy tossed on top of it.

Well.

Kenma stumbled over to the bedside table, mind suddenly wide awake and racing.

_Kenma’s_ weapons were tossed on top. Kuroo’s gun and knife were both missing.

_Why would I take my gun, Kenma?_ Kuroo’s voice asked in his head, clearly helping him to the correct answer.

Kenma darted for the doorway, then stopped himself so aggressively he nearly fell, turning around and grabbing his own weapons before pushing the curtain fully aside and poking his head out.

_How could he have been **so stupid?**_

There was no natural light in Kenma and Kuroo’s part of the hallway, they were too close to the center of the warehouse, so no light reached them. The reason Kenma saw early-morning light was because the walls were crumbling all around him, like there had been some type of explosion.

In fact, the entire place was a war zone. A couple small fires burned within Kenma’s line of vision, smoking up the building and choking his already-labored breathing. Some of the man-made walls they had put up were completely destroyed, and what little furniture and decoration was ruined.

The silence was unbearable, broken only by shuffling and groaning sounds typical of outside the fence. It was almost like the bustling settlement Kuroo had spent so long painstakingly creating had never existed here.

Where was everyone, anyways? Why had no one come to get him if the compound was attacked? Why had _Kuroo_ not come back for him?

Kenma slowly started walking down what used to be a hallway. Now, it was a pathway loosely defined by rubble and ash, barely half of the wall still even upright, let alone intact. 

_Crunch._

The sound came from right under him. Kenma felt his mouth dry itself.

One. Two. Three.

Kenma forced himself to look down.

Under his foot was a human hand, protruding from under a massive pile of debris, and from what Kenma hadn’t crushed with his stupid, stupid movements, it looked pale and vaguely delicate. Well, he had only stepped on one of their uncurled fingers, but somehow, the bone still sounded smashed.

Kenma’s mind began to race, going over the list of names Yaku had given him of people currently residing in the quarantine hallway, but forced himself not to think about it.

Whoever it was, they were very, very dead: Their arm was all that _wasn’t_ trapped under the debris, and there was dried blood circling it now that Kenma was looking. Plus, there had been no reaction when Kenma had crushed their hand, not even a twitch. Kenma’s guess was that the impact had crushed their body so completely that even their brain wasn’t able to stay intact enough to bring back the body as an undead.

Pushing his foot off of the hand, Kenma continued down the hallway.

There were a few other bodies scattered throughout his path, but Kenma avoided the corpses’ eyes. No one he knew. Maybe Kuroo was okay. Maybe everyone that _mattered_ , at least to Kenma, was okay.

Kenma felt the bile in his throat, but he resolutely kept swallowing it down, down, down. Somehow, his brain seemed to refuse to process what was going on. Kenma managed to make it out of the quarantine hallway, but although the damage wasn’t as severe to the rest of the compound, things still weren’t looking too good.

Kenma didn’t want to call out, just in case there were undead in the compound, but all he wanted to do was find Kuroo. He kept making his way through the desolate compound, slowly retracing his steps to Kuroo’s office right in the center of it all.

He had taken this walk many times, but never before had he dreaded and hoped so badly to find the one person that he had never had to look for before. Kuroo had always been by his side. Surely he had just heard the commotion when whatever happened _happened_ , and gathered survivors to retreat to safety. Kenma was sure of it.

Until.

Two bodies, right next to each other.

Kenma would know them anywhere, since he had developed such a habit of avoiding them in the hallways and relenting when they searched him out anyways. A large, so-full-of-life man, now a corpse laying half-propped against the wall, facing out, a gunshot wound right in between his eyes.

_Who would shoot Bokuto Koutarou? And why?_

The person directly next to him, laying all on the floor perpendicular to Bokuto, even in death turned to stare at his husband, Akaashi Keiji; his own gunshot wound was above the ear. His gun lay clattered next to his limp hand.

Kenma gave up on holding it in and vomited.

It takes hours to find Kuroo, but eventually, Kenma does find him. He had somehow made it all the way to Kenma’s old room, the one he stayed in from before he got sick and stayed in the patient ward, and fallen asleep in Kenma’s old cot.

When Kuroo finally opened his eyes again, Kenma cried. He wasn’t quite sure whether they were tears of anger, or relief, or pain. Just that he cried harder when Kuroo immediately reached out to Kenma, an instinct forever ingrained in his soul. It’s comforting: at least Kenma will have Kuroo, and Kuroo will have Kenma, even if nothing else remains.

—

Hinata’s eyes shot open in the darkness of his room.

Kageyama wasn’t snoring next to him as usual, and the heavy slowness in Hinata’s brain prevented the redhead from immediately realizing that was because Kageyama _left_.

Kageyama probably thought Hinata wanted him to leave. No clue why: this entire time, Hinata had been trying to let his partner relax, show him that they could really be safe here! But all Kageyama did was obsess over Kenma and Kuroo and whatever had happened to them in the past that made them somehow untrustworthy.

Still, he kind of needed to pee, so Hinata tried to push himself out of bed.

His body didn’t move. It… didn’t move?

Panic shot through his entire body like venom, speeding up his heartbeat. Hinata darted his eyes around the room, trying to find danger, and they caught on a pair of golden demon eyes staring down at him from the corner.

_You’re finally going to die, Shoyo. You had a good run, but the demon you angered when you were three has finally come to collect his debt._

Hinata tried to move his mouth to say something, anything (probably just scream), but it wouldn’t open, locked shut by whatever was paralyzing the rest of his body. Was this sleep paralysis? He’d never had that before.

The demon's eyes came closer, and a body followed them out of the darkness. Long, ombré-tipped hair, sharp eyes and bones, and a hunched posture that made him look shorter than he was, a body Hinata recognized: Kenma.

Thank god, not a demon, but Hinata still couldn’t quite connect the dots on why Kenma was standing in the darkness of Hinata’s room while he slept.

_If Kageyama had been dealing with this, Hinata understood why he wanted to leave._

No! Bad Hinata! He was sure there was a reasonable explanation for this. He caught Kenma’s eye, letting the other know that he was aware of his presence.

“Hey, Shoyo,” Kenma started, slowly. His breath came out slow, like he’s not sure what to say. “I’ve been thinking.”

“I know this is kind of out of the blue. So just keep an open mind, okay?” Kenma padded closer to the bed, flipping the covers back and exposing Hinata’s sleep pants. He wasn’t wearing a shirt— it was still warm enough to excuse it.

Confusion slowly seeped into Hinata’s brain. He no longer had any clue what might be going on, and he wasn’t sure why, but it’s like his brain is refusing to work right. He couldn’t bring himself to move, and when Kenma firmly gripped Hinata’s leg and pulled, he’s fairly sure this isn’t a nightmare. It’s really happening.

“You’re actually not the first people to come to me and Kuroo, you know that, right? I mean, before… people came all the time. Looking for civilization. After the compound fell, they kept showing up. We have road signs up, did you know? So ’people looking for a home can have one’,” Kenma mumbled, dragging Hinata’s body out until he gracelessly _thumped_ against the hard floor. He’d never wished he had a rug there before tonight.

Hinata wanted to ask Kenma what he’s doing. Where he’s going with this. He couldn’t.

“They show up, and they don’t realize it’s just me and Kuroo. This place used to be so full of _life_. I still remember the people who lived in the room you sleep in.” A deep breath. “They died, when the compound fell.”

Hinata desperately wanted to know what Kenma was talking about. It was always obvious, to him and Kageyama both, that something bad had happened to this place, that changed it from a bustling settlement to only two people living in isolation, but Kageyama always shouted too loud to really get answers and Hinata didn’t want to hear another tragedy when most days he felt like he was perpetually living in one.

“I let the new people in. And I let them meet Kuroo. And they don’t _understand_ , but I know you’ll understand, Shoyo. Because we’re the same, aren’t we?”

Kenma lifted Hinata’s limp arms and hooked his own around them, dragging the younger along by his underarms. It was a slow process, since Hinata was so much bulkier. Hinata tested it again, and his lips twitched, but he couldn’t manage sounds yet. Let alone voice his questions.

“Maybe someone figured it out. Maybe the road signs are gone, or people talked about this place too much, but you two are the first people to come here in _months_ , Shoyo.”

_Months?_ How long had it been just Kenma and Kuroo?

“And Kuroo isn’t doing too well, you know. He’s been sick for so long…” Kenma takes a deep breath. “I know he’ll get better, though.”

Hinata watched, helpless, as Kenma heaved and dragged him into the hallway. _Drag,_ huff, _drag,_ huff, _drag--_

“I’ll admit, I got a bit lonely. Even my games can get repetitive when there’s no one to play them with, and all Kuroo does is sleep and ignore me. He’s been so different since he got worse.”

Hinata couldn’t move his neck, forced to watch the walls slowly pass him. He wasn’t exactly sure why Kenma was dragging him somewhere, or even where they were going, or why this felt so… planned.

“I got kind of attached to you. You’re so… bright, Shoyo. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long and you’re still so bright. I put off letting you and Kageyama meet Kuroo because I didn’t want to lose you.”

Kenma dragged him along the floors, and Hinata felt them start to scrape against his bare skin at the base of his back and ride up his sleep pants. It hurt, but all he could do was let out a drunk-sounding groan.

Kenma looked surprised, then smiled proudly. “You shouldn’t be able to make any noise this soon after eating. I’m really impressed, Shoyo. You’re amazing.”

After eating…. after eating? Did Kenma —

“Most people can’t move or speak for twelve hours after ingestion. Kuroo taught me that. He has a minor in chemistry, the nerd.” It was a huffy, slightly-affectionate tone that clashed badly with the information Hinata was hearing.

Kenma _drugged_ him.

“Really, I used the last of it on you, so maybe I didn’t have enough left…” Kenma muttered, mainly to himself.

Hinata wondered if Kenma had spent all this time tricking him and driving him away from Kageyama so that he would leave and Kenma could do whatever he wanted with no repercussions. He felt like such an idiot. Another mouth twitch, though: he was regaining movement, slowly but surely.

Kenma suddenly stopped. Hinata waited for him to start up his dragging again, but instead, there was the click of a lock opening and then a door being pushed open.

There was no light inside the room, but Hinata felt his entire body erupt in goosebumps at the sounds coming from inside. It was a type of sound he hadn’t heard in weeks, not since he had stepped inside the compound for the first time. A sound that was normal for outside, but not inside of a compound like this: a _growl._

“Kuro, don’t be like that. I want you to meet Shoyo,” Kenma scolded, dragging Hinata into the room’s darkness.

Kenma shuffled around in the darkness, probably working on a light source; although Hinata was terrified, being unable to move so close to an undead, he still forced his mouth to move.

“Ishz thad Kuroo? Hesh an UNDEAHF!” Hinata mumbled. It came out sounding like he had just gotten his wisdom teeth removed.

The room brightened with candlelight.

“No he’s not,” Kenma replied calmly, and Hinata realized he’d heard Kenma say this millions of times: “Kuroo is just sick.”

Kenma is insane. He has to be. No one in their right mind thinks that an undead is still alive, right?

Hinata strained to move his neck, but it wasn’t cooperating. Kenma sensed the struggle and abandoned lighting the rest of the candles to prop Hinata up against the wall where he could easily see Kuroo.

“Kuroo” had messy, matted black hair that stuck up in all manner of directions, and yellow, gleaming eyes that were glazed over with death. His clothes were absolutely bathed in blood, and that same dried blood dragged from his mouth and stained his face. This was an undead that had _eaten_ : many times.

He was laying in a bed, the sheets stained with all matter of blood and fluid, chained by one of his wrists to the thin metal bedpost.

Hinata managed to just barely twist his neck. _Improvement._

Kenma had gone back to the candles, and now he had them all lit.

“Kuroo doesn’t like too much light, sorry,” he apologized casually, like this wasn’t the most demented situation possible. “I hope you understand.”

“NOH! I DOHT!” Hinata screamed, but it still came out slurred.

Kenma cocked his head. It was almost cute. Endearing. “We already talked about this… Kuroo is my person. I would do anything for him.”

“LEH ME GOH!” Hinata shouted, twitches going throughout his body as he slowly regained feeling, but not yet complete control. Kenma ignored him.

“You see, I know Kuroo can get better, but… he won’t— all he’ll eat is— Shoyo, I let people in here for a reason. For Kuroo.”

Dread and helplessness together was an awful feeling, and although Hinata had felt that before, this was a new level of despair.

“It sure made it easier to do this with Kageyama gone, but it means there’s less food for Kuroo, so I wish he had stayed,” Kenma explained, eyes trained on the undead, watching Kuroo struggle to get up and go attack them when he was chained to the bed.

“THISH IS WRONGH!” Hinata shouted, pushing himself off the floor. Kenma’s eyes flicked to him at the movement, and suddenly, there was a gun trained on him.

“I thought you would understand… I would do _anything_ for Kuroo!!” Kenma shot back, the gun shaking slightly.

Hinata knew he was barely able to stand, let alone get Kenma down without dying. Slowly, he raised his hands in surrender.

“Don’t move, Shoyo,” Kenma warned, eyes sharp. Slowly, he moved over to Kuroo and took his eyes off of Hinata to unshackle the undead from the handcuffs.

Immediately, Kuroo tried to lunge for Kenma, but the other simply redirected the undead to Hinata with practiced ease, and the thing came at him, brainless and _hungry._

He was barely able to catch the undead’s arms with his own slow movements, trying to push it off, but whoever Kuroo was before he died, he was _strong,_ and Hinata knew this was a fight he was destined to lose.

Hinata shouted uselessly as he grappled with the rotting flesh between his fingers. The skin peeled apart under his pull and unraveled as congealed, black blood splattered thickly across his grimed-up face. In a last ditch, instinctual effort, he screamed.

“KAGEYAMAAAA!”

The shout would probably do nothing: who even knew if Kageyama was still within earshot after he stormed off earlier? He felt tears bite at his eyes as he realized his last words to Kageyama might be —

A gunshot reverberated around the small, enclosed space, and Hinata felt his ears explode with a ringing pain. Had Kenma shot him?

No. The body once coming at him was now sinking to the floor. Hinata stared, unable to process, then slowly lifted his eyes.

“No…”

Kenma wasn’t looking back at him. His eyes, wide, were trained on the lifeless undead at Hinata’s feet. His face was nearly perfectly blank, but then, in an instant, it snapped into a rage.

“NO!”

“Sorry, Hinata,” Kageyama apologized from behind him, in the doorway. Hinata whipped around in confusion, but Kageyama’s eyes and gun were trained away from him.

Another gunshot blasted between golden eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, let me know if you saw the Kuroo thing coming, and if you did, what made you realize: there's lots of foreshadowing I stuffed in, but I am very curious. You have no idea the amount of people who were concerned for my mental health when I told them a rundown of this WIP and how it ended, lol. 
> 
> Questions, commentary, (constructive) criticism, anything- comments make my entire day. I also am considering turning this into a series, when Hinata and Kageyama being seen through other characters in their journey (I have a vague idea for an Oikawa-centric fic already), as they have seen quite a few others outside of this experience with Kenma. If there is demand, it will happen.


End file.
